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Had enough of the factory pickguard placement


Guth

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With all of the recent discussions regarding Bozeman's questionable placement of the teardrop-shaped pickguards on the J-45 models (with the exception of the J-45 Legend), I found this lack of attention to detail to be increasingly disappointing. While it's not that big of a deal in the overall scheme of things, I finally decided to "re-place" mine just for my own peace of mind. Now my True Vintage looks just a bit more "true vintage". I much prefer to see the classic simple rosette design without it being partially covered by the pickguard. It only required a minimum of shaping on the existing pickguard as the arc was slightly less than perfect, but the guard was clearly designed to sit on the outside of the rosette as opposed to the inside. YMMV, to each their own, and all that jazz.

 

Here's the before & after images:

 

j45_pickguard.jpg

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i agree and your pictures , IMO, prove it .

is it ant easy enough job? what did you use to remove the guard? what did you use to shape it etc .

any chance of a bit of a talk through for us folk who havent had the b@*ls to do it?

thanks

 

It wasn't really all that hard. As a reference, I've never done anything like this before — just took my time and tried to stay patient with the process. I read up on some posts here and elsewhere on the web and came up with my plan. The very tip of my pickguard was already starting to lift just a tiny bit so getting started was easy enough. I warmed the guard up with a hairdryer set to low. I covered up the guitar finish with some bath towels so that only the pickguard was exposed to the heat, for the most part anyway. I warmed it up just slightly a bit at a time and I used some dental floss that I soaked in naptha to work my way underneath the pickguard. I followed this approach for quite a while, working my way down the length of the guard until I was done. I did not "pull up" on the guard at all as I wanted to re-use it once I got if off and didn't want to bend it. Getting the old adhesive off of the guitar's finish took a long time. I used some naptha and a cotten cloth to do so, once again working slowly and removing just a bit at a time.

 

I purhased some double sided adhesive sheets from Stewart MacDonald and used that to stick the pickguard back down in its new location.This part was a bit tricky, if you don't nail it, you'll need to repeat the above process all over again. I have no idea how many chances you get with the factory pickguard before it shows signs of wear from doing this.

 

As far as the shaping is concerned, I just used some sandpaper to smooth the arc of the pickguard that was to sit flush to the outside of the rosette rings. I wanted the two to match up as perfectly as possible. It didn't take much sanding at all, really just smoothing things up a bit. I should also point out that there is a bit of a "glue shadow" left in the finish from where the guard had originaly been placed. This might possibly work itself out with time, at any rate, I'm guessing that the sooner you do this job, the better. You could certainly mess your guitar up do this, so take that for what it's worth and of course proceed with caution if you do decide to attempt this.

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thanks guth, i want to move mine , but scary stuff . dental floss is a bit of a genius idea, for naptha did you just use regular lighter fluid ? and the 'shadow' you talk a out, is thats just seen on the rosette ?

appreciate you walking on the ice first here, think i'm brave enough to have a go at this now . it's all done in a morning right?

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I did a similar job on my J-45 Historic Collection, and had similar results. It is well worth the effort, and Guth's before and after pix are the proof. It's really not that hard to do, but I still wish Bozeman would just put them on in the right place to start with ...

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It really makes me scratch my head when I see so many new Gibsons with wrong PGs. With the kind of money you have to spend for a new J-45 or AJ or the like, I would expect to get one with the PG placed correctly, not to mention the right shape. I wonder how many guitars Bozeman gets back as "warranty repairs" for this. I wouldn't buy a guitar that had such a major flaw.

 

However, hats off to you for fixing it yourself. Looks awesome. The dental floss idea is really ingenius.

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thanks guth, i want to move mine , but scary stuff . dental floss is a bit of a genius idea, for naptha did you just use regular lighter fluid ? and the 'shadow' you talk a out, is thats just seen on the rosette ?

appreciate you walking on the ice first here, think i'm brave enough to have a go at this now . it's all done in a morning right?

 

It is scary stuff, I'll grant you that, especially considering just how much I dig this guitar. I was prepared to live with the consequences if I messed something up and I knew that was a possibility, but was hoping for the best. I suppose you could say that I've now bonded with the instrument that much more. I should point out that I purchased my J-45 used and thus I had no concerns about voiding the factory warranty. This is not a minor point for many I'm sure.

 

I used regular lighter fluid. The "shadow" is actually a vague outline of where the pickguard was placed originally and can be seen under certain lighting conditions. Outline is probably a better word as there is no real visible change in the darkness of the finish, and this might be something that varies from one guitar to the next depending on how old the guitar is (mine is a 2008 model). This might be something that can be polished out..

 

I probably spent 2-3 hours on this total. The sanding/shaping wasn't really essential, I just wanted the curve of the guard next to the rosette to appear as smooth as possible, but the overall shape is such that it was clearly designed to be placed next to the outside of the rosette. I got the dental floss idea from someone else out on the web who had done this same thing. The main advantages that I saw in using the floss were that it helped to keep from bending the factory pickguard as I wanted to reuse it, and it created far less upward tension on the top that would come from simply pulling the guard off. It might have allowed me to use less heat when warming up the pickguard as well, but I can't say for sure. When I was finished with the floss, almost all of the adhesive from the factory was left on the top of the guitar and that took quite a while to clean off as there was a lot of it. Placing the pickguard back down in the correct spot was probably the toughest part of all. I had read about people using a bit of tape as a "hinge" on the bottom of the guard. This allows you to get the placement just right and then you can flip the pickguard up and remove the adhesive backing before flipping it back down in place. I did this, but instead of simply "flipping" the pickguard back down, I very slowly lowered it as there was just a bit of play in this system that made me nervous. I wanted to make sure that everything lined up as well as possible and the tape helped get things oriented correctly. I used some tape that was low tack to begin with and then I placed it on and removed it from my jeans a number of time to cut the tackiness down even more so that I did not mess the guitar's finish with the tape.

 

Overall I'm glad I took the time to do this and I'm happy with the results. But like I said earlier, this isn't a huge deal in the overall scheme of things and if you're at all worried about messing up your Gibson I wouldn't recommend that you try this. I just wish that the folks in Bozeman would place the teardrop pickguards on the guitars like they used to in Kalamazoo to begin with. For me, it was a low point on what is otherwise a truly amazing instrument.

 

All the best,

Guth

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That does look better, and more authentic. Well done for being brave! I don't think I am...

 

Did you by any chance take a pic with no 'guard on at all? Just wondering what it looked like.

 

No, I did not take any "naked" shots although I thought about this later. I can tell you that it definitely did not look right to my eye.That pickguard is seemingly part of the J-45s DNA.

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It really makes me scratch my head when I see so many new Gibsons with wrong PGs. With the kind of money you have to spend for a new J-45 or AJ or the like, I would expect to get one with the PG placed correctly, not to mention the right shape.

 

That is the part that really ate at me — it is the right pickguard. It's simply being placed in the wrong position. That's why the tip of the pickguard appears back outside of the rosette on the factory placed examples. It appears to be the same shape pickguard that they've used for decades. If the guard had actually been redesigned to be placed on the inside of the rosette then this wouldn't have bothered me as much, although I would have still preferred to see the rosette without it being covered up by the pickguard.

 

The guard on my AJ on the other hand could not possibly be placed any more perfectly than it already is.

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Maybe one day, the pickguard over the rosette will be looked upon as a fingerprint of the Bozeman/Ren era. At some future date, maybe in 50 years, Gibson will be making 2000 era Gibson reissues ("New for 2058, the fiftieth anniversary Gibson 2008 J-45 True Vintage Reissue..."), and touting the period correct pickguard covering the rosette placement.

 

Either that, or they'll get it wrong, and the new bunch on this forum will be complaining about the inattention to detail!

 

Red 333

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That does look better, and more authentic. Well done for being brave! I don't think I am...

 

Did you by any chance take a pic with no 'guard on at all? Just wondering what it looked like.

 

IT would look something like this, a mid 2000s Roy Smeck with no pick guard. As someone else said, it needs the guard to make it look right.

 

 

IMG_5533.jpg

 

I've got a similar guitar, with pickguard, as below.

RoyNick.jpg

 

I love the sunburst over the tiger stripe pick guard on the Nick Lucas.

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Good looking job. Admit I like the sight of the full rosette.

 

This is one of the classic discussions. Why on earth can't Bozeman place the guards right. . .

Bet they can, but if you study older guitars, you'll typically see a lot of wear just in that area of the sound hole periphery. Some are down right torn up.

I believe there is a simple rationale to the decision – Better protection.

 

Regarding my own, I'm in 2 minds. Guess I'm kinda loyal to the new original thought.

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Good looking job. Admit I like the sight of the full rosette.

 

This is one of the classic discussions. Why on earth can't Bozeman place the guards right. . .

Bet they can, but if you study older guitars, you'll typically see a lot of wear just in that area of the sound hole periphery. Some are down right torn up.

I believe there is a simple rationale to the decision – Better protection.

 

Regarding my own, I'm in 2 minds. Guess I'm kinda loyal to the new original thought.

 

I guess that still doesn't make sense to me that they would do it for that reason. It's not symmetrical. It just plain looks sloppy.

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Good looking job. Admit I like the sight of the full rosette.

 

This is one of the classic discussions. Why on earth can't Bozeman place the guards right. . .

Bet they can, but if you study older guitars, you'll typically see a lot of wear just in that area of the sound hole periphery. Some are down right torn up.

I believe there is a simple rationale to the decision – Better protection.

 

Regarding my own, I'm in 2 minds. Guess I'm kinda loyal to the new original thought.

 

yeah , maybe ............ or scared :-p

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I guess that still doesn't make sense to me that they would do it for that reason. It's not symmetrical. It just plain looks sloppy.

They obviously wouldn't want to change design of the guard.

They obviously aren't imbeciles. Of course they are aware and can put it outside the ring. There might be a respect for the original originals aspect also.

 

Keep an eye on this – there's always a minor change here or there. If not visible then inside the box. As late as today, I encountered a salesguy, who came up with the standard mistake as presenting a TV Bird : This is made exactly as they were back in start.

 

Had to look at him and gently tell him NO. . . .

 

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Aesthetically it seems there is agreement that its better to see the rosette. But i can understand the protection argument, especially if youre a hard dtrummer you would want to have the soundhole protected right from the edge. Im a strummer so Ill take the soundhole protection (as it is on my AL SJ) over the rosette showing.

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Aesthetically it seems there is agreement that its better to see the rosette. But i can understand the protection argument, especially if youre a hard dtrummer you would want to have the soundhole protected right from the edge. Im a strummer so Ill take the soundhole protection (as it is on my AL SJ) over the rosette showing.

 

Sorry, guys, I still don't understand it. There is a good 1/4" of wood unprotected even with the goofy pickguard. Seems to me it changes very little.

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